xref: /qemu/docs/about/emulation.rst (revision 17e9c9094400afefa0c802b903186a730c148c49)
1Emulation
2=========
3
4QEMU's Tiny Code Generator (TCG) provides the ability to emulate a
5number of CPU architectures on any supported host platform. Both
6:ref:`System Emulation` and :ref:`User Mode Emulation` are supported
7depending on the guest architecture.
8
9.. list-table:: Supported Guest Architectures for Emulation
10  :widths: 30 10 10 50
11  :header-rows: 1
12
13  * - Architecture (qemu name)
14    - System
15    - User
16    - Notes
17  * - Alpha
18    - Yes
19    - Yes
20    - Legacy 64 bit RISC ISA developed by DEC
21  * - Arm (arm, aarch64)
22    - :ref:`Yes<ARM-System-emulator>`
23    - Yes
24    - Wide range of features, see :ref:`Arm Emulation` for details
25  * - AVR
26    - :ref:`Yes<AVR-System-emulator>`
27    - No
28    - 8 bit micro controller, often used in maker projects
29  * - Hexagon
30    - No
31    - Yes
32    - Family of DSPs by Qualcomm
33  * - PA-RISC (hppa)
34    - Yes
35    - Yes
36    - A legacy RISC system used in HP's old minicomputers
37  * - x86 (i386, x86_64)
38    - :ref:`Yes<QEMU-PC-System-emulator>`
39    - Yes
40    - The ubiquitous desktop PC CPU architecture, 32 and 64 bit.
41  * - LoongArch
42    - Yes
43    - Yes
44    - A MIPS-like 64bit RISC architecture developed in China
45  * - m68k
46    - :ref:`Yes<ColdFire-System-emulator>`
47    - Yes
48    - Motorola 68000 variants and ColdFire
49  * - Microblaze
50    - Yes
51    - Yes
52    - RISC based soft-core by Xilinx
53  * - MIPS (mips*)
54    - :ref:`Yes<MIPS-System-emulator>`
55    - Yes
56    - Venerable RISC architecture originally out of Stanford University
57  * - OpenRISC
58    - :ref:`Yes<OpenRISC-System-emulator>`
59    - Yes
60    - Open source RISC architecture developed by the OpenRISC community
61  * - Power (ppc, ppc64)
62    - :ref:`Yes<PowerPC-System-emulator>`
63    - Yes
64    - A general purpose RISC architecture now managed by IBM
65  * - RISC-V
66    - :ref:`Yes<RISC-V-System-emulator>`
67    - Yes
68    - An open standard RISC ISA maintained by RISC-V International
69  * - RX
70    - :ref:`Yes<RX-System-emulator>`
71    - No
72    - A 32 bit micro controller developed by Renesas
73  * - s390x
74    - :ref:`Yes<s390x-System-emulator>`
75    - Yes
76    - A 64 bit CPU found in IBM's System Z mainframes
77  * - sh4
78    - Yes
79    - Yes
80    - A 32 bit RISC embedded CPU developed by Hitachi
81  * - SPARC (sparc, sparc64)
82    - :ref:`Yes<Sparc32-System-emulator>`
83    - Yes
84    - A RISC ISA originally developed by Sun Microsystems
85  * - Tricore
86    - Yes
87    - No
88    - A 32 bit RISC/uController/DSP developed by Infineon
89  * - Xtensa
90    - :ref:`Yes<Xtensa-System-emulator>`
91    - Yes
92    - A configurable 32 bit soft core now owned by Cadence
93
94.. _Semihosting:
95
96Semihosting
97-----------
98
99Semihosting is a feature defined by the owner of the architecture to
100allow programs to interact with a debugging host system. On real
101hardware this is usually provided by an In-circuit emulator (ICE)
102hooked directly to the board. QEMU's implementation allows for
103semihosting calls to be passed to the host system or via the
104``gdbstub``.
105
106Generally semihosting makes it easier to bring up low level code before a
107more fully functional operating system has been enabled. On QEMU it
108also allows for embedded micro-controller code which typically doesn't
109have a full libc to be run as "bare-metal" code under QEMU's user-mode
110emulation. It is also useful for writing test cases and indeed a
111number of compiler suites as well as QEMU itself use semihosting calls
112to exit test code while reporting the success state.
113
114Semihosting is only available using TCG emulation. This is because the
115instructions to trigger a semihosting call are typically reserved
116causing most hypervisors to trap and fault on them.
117
118.. warning::
119   Semihosting inherently bypasses any isolation there may be between
120   the guest and the host. As a result a program using semihosting can
121   happily trash your host system. Some semihosting calls (e.g.
122   ``SYS_READC``) can block execution indefinitely. You should only
123   ever run trusted code with semihosting enabled.
124
125Redirection
126~~~~~~~~~~~
127
128Semihosting calls can be re-directed to a (potentially remote) gdb
129during debugging via the :ref:`gdbstub<GDB usage>`. Output to the
130semihosting console is configured as a ``chardev`` so can be
131redirected to a file, pipe or socket like any other ``chardev``
132device.
133
134Supported Targets
135~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
136
137Most targets offer similar semihosting implementations with some
138minor changes to define the appropriate instruction to encode the
139semihosting call and which registers hold the parameters. They tend to
140presents a simple POSIX-like API which allows your program to read and
141write files, access the console and some other basic interactions.
142
143For full details of the ABI for a particular target, and the set of
144calls it provides, you should consult the semihosting specification
145for that architecture.
146
147.. note::
148   QEMU makes an implementation decision to implement all file
149   access in ``O_BINARY`` mode. The user-visible effect of this is
150   regardless of the text/binary mode the program sets QEMU will
151   always select a binary mode ensuring no line-terminator conversion
152   is performed on input or output. This is because gdb semihosting
153   support doesn't make the distinction between the modes and
154   magically processing line endings can be confusing.
155
156.. list-table:: Guest Architectures supporting Semihosting
157  :widths: 10 10 80
158  :header-rows: 1
159
160  * - Architecture
161    - Modes
162    - Specification
163  * - Arm
164    - System and User-mode
165    - https://github.com/ARM-software/abi-aa/blob/main/semihosting/semihosting.rst
166  * - m68k
167    - System
168    - https://sourceware.org/git/?p=newlib-cygwin.git;a=blob;f=libgloss/m68k/m68k-semi.txt;hb=HEAD
169  * - MIPS
170    - System
171    - Unified Hosting Interface (MD01069)
172  * - RISC-V
173    - System and User-mode
174    - https://github.com/riscv-non-isa/riscv-semihosting/blob/main/riscv-semihosting.adoc
175  * - Xtensa
176    - System
177    - Tensilica ISS SIMCALL
178
179.. _tcg-plugins:
180
181TCG Plugins
182-----------
183
184QEMU TCG plugins provide a way for users to run experiments taking
185advantage of the total system control emulation can have over a guest.
186It provides a mechanism for plugins to subscribe to events during
187translation and execution and optionally callback into the plugin
188during these events. TCG plugins are unable to change the system state
189only monitor it passively. However they can do this down to an
190individual instruction granularity including potentially subscribing
191to all load and store operations.
192
193See the developer section of the manual for details about
194:ref:`writing plugins<TCG Plugins>`.
195
196Usage
197~~~~~
198
199Any QEMU binary with TCG support has plugins enabled by default.
200Earlier releases needed to be explicitly enabled with::
201
202  configure --enable-plugins
203
204Once built a program can be run with multiple plugins loaded each with
205their own arguments::
206
207  $QEMU $OTHER_QEMU_ARGS \
208      -plugin contrib/plugins/libhowvec.so,inline=on,count=hint \
209      -plugin contrib/plugins/libhotblocks.so
210
211Arguments are plugin specific and can be used to modify their
212behaviour. In this case the howvec plugin is being asked to use inline
213ops to count and break down the hint instructions by type.
214
215Linux user-mode emulation also evaluates the environment variable
216``QEMU_PLUGIN``::
217
218  QEMU_PLUGIN="file=contrib/plugins/libhowvec.so,inline=on,count=hint" $QEMU
219
220QEMU plugins avoid to write directly to stdin/stderr, and use the log provided
221by the API (see function ``qemu_plugin_outs``).
222To show output, you may use this additional parameter::
223
224  $QEMU $OTHER_QEMU_ARGS \
225    -d plugin \
226    -plugin contrib/plugins/libhowvec.so,inline=on,count=hint
227
228Example Plugins
229~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
230
231There are a number of plugins included with QEMU and you are
232encouraged to contribute your own plugins plugins upstream. There is a
233``contrib/plugins`` directory where they can go. There are also some
234basic plugins that are used to test and exercise the API during the
235``make check-tcg`` target in ``tests/tcg/plugins`` that are never the
236less useful for basic analysis.
237
238Empty
239.....
240
241``tests/tcg/plugins/empty.c``
242
243Purely a test plugin for measuring the overhead of the plugins system
244itself. Does no instrumentation.
245
246Basic Blocks
247............
248
249``tests/tcg/plugins/bb.c``
250
251A very basic plugin which will measure execution in coarse terms as
252each basic block is executed. By default the results are shown once
253execution finishes::
254
255  $ qemu-aarch64 -plugin tests/plugin/libbb.so \
256      -d plugin ./tests/tcg/aarch64-linux-user/sha1
257  SHA1=15dd99a1991e0b3826fede3deffc1feba42278e6
258  bb's: 2277338, insns: 158483046
259
260Behaviour can be tweaked with the following arguments:
261
262.. list-table:: Basic Block plugin arguments
263  :widths: 20 80
264  :header-rows: 1
265
266  * - Option
267    - Description
268  * - inline=true|false
269    - Use faster inline addition of a single counter.
270  * - idle=true|false
271    - Dump the current execution stats whenever the guest vCPU idles
272
273Basic Block Vectors
274...................
275
276``contrib/plugins/bbv.c``
277
278The bbv plugin allows you to generate basic block vectors for use with the
279`SimPoint <https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~calder/simpoint/>`__ analysis tool.
280
281.. list-table:: Basic block vectors arguments
282  :widths: 20 80
283  :header-rows: 1
284
285  * - Option
286    - Description
287  * - interval=N
288    - The interval to generate a basic block vector specified by the number of
289      instructions (Default: N = 100000000)
290  * - outfile=PATH
291    - The path to output files.
292      It will be suffixed with ``.N.bb`` where ``N`` is a vCPU index.
293
294Example::
295
296  $ qemu-aarch64 \
297    -plugin contrib/plugins/libbbv.so,interval=100,outfile=sha1 \
298    tests/tcg/aarch64-linux-user/sha1
299  SHA1=15dd99a1991e0b3826fede3deffc1feba42278e6
300  $ du sha1.0.bb
301  23128   sha1.0.bb
302
303Instruction
304...........
305
306``tests/tcg/plugins/insn.c``
307
308This is a basic instruction level instrumentation which can count the
309number of instructions executed on each core/thread::
310
311  $ qemu-aarch64 -plugin tests/plugin/libinsn.so \
312      -d plugin ./tests/tcg/aarch64-linux-user/threadcount
313  Created 10 threads
314  Done
315  cpu 0 insns: 46765
316  cpu 1 insns: 3694
317  cpu 2 insns: 3694
318  cpu 3 insns: 2994
319  cpu 4 insns: 1497
320  cpu 5 insns: 1497
321  cpu 6 insns: 1497
322  cpu 7 insns: 1497
323  total insns: 63135
324
325Behaviour can be tweaked with the following arguments:
326
327.. list-table:: Instruction plugin arguments
328  :widths: 20 80
329  :header-rows: 1
330
331  * - Option
332    - Description
333  * - inline=true|false
334    - Use faster inline addition of a single counter.
335  * - sizes=true|false
336    - Give a summary of the instruction sizes for the execution
337  * - match=<string>
338    - Only instrument instructions matching the string prefix
339
340The ``match`` option will show some basic stats including how many
341instructions have executed since the last execution. For
342example::
343
344   $ qemu-aarch64 -plugin tests/plugin/libinsn.so,match=bl \
345       -d plugin ./tests/tcg/aarch64-linux-user/sha512-vector
346   ...
347   0x40069c, 'bl #0x4002b0', 10 hits, 1093 match hits, Δ+1257 since last match, 98 avg insns/match
348   0x4006ac, 'bl #0x403690', 10 hits, 1094 match hits, Δ+47 since last match, 98 avg insns/match
349   0x4037fc, 'bl #0x4002b0', 18 hits, 1095 match hits, Δ+22 since last match, 98 avg insns/match
350   0x400720, 'bl #0x403690', 10 hits, 1096 match hits, Δ+58 since last match, 98 avg insns/match
351   0x4037fc, 'bl #0x4002b0', 19 hits, 1097 match hits, Δ+22 since last match, 98 avg insns/match
352   0x400730, 'bl #0x403690', 10 hits, 1098 match hits, Δ+33 since last match, 98 avg insns/match
353   0x4037ac, 'bl #0x4002b0', 12 hits, 1099 match hits, Δ+20 since last match, 98 avg insns/match
354   ...
355
356For more detailed execution tracing see the ``execlog`` plugin for
357other options.
358
359Memory
360......
361
362``tests/tcg/plugins/mem.c``
363
364Basic instruction level memory instrumentation::
365
366  $ qemu-aarch64 -plugin tests/plugin/libmem.so,inline=true \
367      -d plugin ./tests/tcg/aarch64-linux-user/sha1
368  SHA1=15dd99a1991e0b3826fede3deffc1feba42278e6
369  inline mem accesses: 79525013
370
371Behaviour can be tweaked with the following arguments:
372
373.. list-table:: Memory plugin arguments
374  :widths: 20 80
375  :header-rows: 1
376
377  * - Option
378    - Description
379  * - inline=true|false
380    - Use faster inline addition of a single counter
381  * - callback=true|false
382    - Use callbacks on each memory instrumentation.
383  * - hwaddr=true|false
384    - Count IO accesses (only for system emulation)
385
386System Calls
387............
388
389``tests/tcg/plugins/syscall.c``
390
391A basic syscall tracing plugin. This only works for user-mode. By
392default it will give a summary of syscall stats at the end of the
393run::
394
395  $ qemu-aarch64 -plugin tests/plugin/libsyscall \
396      -d plugin ./tests/tcg/aarch64-linux-user/threadcount
397  Created 10 threads
398  Done
399  syscall no.  calls  errors
400  226          12     0
401  99           11     11
402  115          11     0
403  222          11     0
404  93           10     0
405  220          10     0
406  233          10     0
407  215          8      0
408  214          4      0
409  134          2      0
410  64           2      0
411  96           1      0
412  94           1      0
413  80           1      0
414  261          1      0
415  78           1      0
416  160          1      0
417  135          1      0
418
419Behaviour can be tweaked with the following arguments:
420
421.. list-table:: Syscall plugin arguments
422  :widths: 20 80
423  :header-rows: 1
424
425  * - Option
426    - Description
427  * - print=true|false
428    - Print the number of times each syscall is called
429  * - log_writes=true|false
430    - Log the buffer of each write syscall in hexdump format
431
432Test inline operations
433......................
434
435``tests/plugins/inline.c``
436
437This plugin is used for testing all inline operations, conditional callbacks and
438scoreboard. It prints a per-cpu summary of all events.
439
440
441Hot Blocks
442..........
443
444``contrib/plugins/hotblocks.c``
445
446The hotblocks plugin allows you to examine the where hot paths of
447execution are in your program. Once the program has finished you will
448get a sorted list of blocks reporting the starting PC, translation
449count, number of instructions and execution count. This will work best
450with linux-user execution as system emulation tends to generate
451re-translations as blocks from different programs get swapped in and
452out of system memory.
453
454Example::
455
456  $ qemu-aarch64 \
457    -plugin contrib/plugins/libhotblocks.so -d plugin \
458    ./tests/tcg/aarch64-linux-user/sha1
459  SHA1=15dd99a1991e0b3826fede3deffc1feba42278e6
460  collected 903 entries in the hash table
461  pc, tcount, icount, ecount
462  0x0000000041ed10, 1, 5, 66087
463  0x000000004002b0, 1, 4, 66087
464  ...
465
466
467Hot Pages
468.........
469
470``contrib/plugins/hotpages.c``
471
472Similar to hotblocks but this time tracks memory accesses::
473
474  $ qemu-aarch64 \
475    -plugin contrib/plugins/libhotpages.so -d plugin \
476    ./tests/tcg/aarch64-linux-user/sha1
477  SHA1=15dd99a1991e0b3826fede3deffc1feba42278e6
478  Addr, RCPUs, Reads, WCPUs, Writes
479  0x000055007fe000, 0x0001, 31747952, 0x0001, 8835161
480  0x000055007ff000, 0x0001, 29001054, 0x0001, 8780625
481  0x00005500800000, 0x0001, 687465, 0x0001, 335857
482  0x0000000048b000, 0x0001, 130594, 0x0001, 355
483  0x0000000048a000, 0x0001, 1826, 0x0001, 11
484
485The hotpages plugin can be configured using the following arguments:
486
487.. list-table:: Hot pages arguments
488  :widths: 20 80
489  :header-rows: 1
490
491  * - Option
492    - Description
493  * - sortby=reads|writes|address
494    - Log the data sorted by either the number of reads, the number of writes, or
495      memory address. (Default: entries are sorted by the sum of reads and writes)
496  * - io=on
497    - Track IO addresses. Only relevant to full system emulation. (Default: off)
498  * - pagesize=N
499    - The page size used. (Default: N = 4096)
500
501Instruction Distribution
502........................
503
504``contrib/plugins/howvec.c``
505
506This is an instruction classifier so can be used to count different
507types of instructions. It has a number of options to refine which get
508counted. You can give a value to the ``count`` argument for a class of
509instructions to break it down fully, so for example to see all the system
510registers accesses::
511
512  $ qemu-system-aarch64 $(QEMU_ARGS) \
513    -append "root=/dev/sda2 systemd.unit=benchmark.service" \
514    -smp 4 -plugin ./contrib/plugins/libhowvec.so,count=sreg -d plugin
515
516which will lead to a sorted list after the class breakdown::
517
518  Instruction Classes:
519  Class:   UDEF                   not counted
520  Class:   SVE                    (68 hits)
521  Class:   PCrel addr             (47789483 hits)
522  Class:   Add/Sub (imm)          (192817388 hits)
523  Class:   Logical (imm)          (93852565 hits)
524  Class:   Move Wide (imm)        (76398116 hits)
525  Class:   Bitfield               (44706084 hits)
526  Class:   Extract                (5499257 hits)
527  Class:   Cond Branch (imm)      (147202932 hits)
528  Class:   Exception Gen          (193581 hits)
529  Class:     NOP                  not counted
530  Class:   Hints                  (6652291 hits)
531  Class:   Barriers               (8001661 hits)
532  Class:   PSTATE                 (1801695 hits)
533  Class:   System Insn            (6385349 hits)
534  Class:   System Reg             counted individually
535  Class:   Branch (reg)           (69497127 hits)
536  Class:   Branch (imm)           (84393665 hits)
537  Class:   Cmp & Branch           (110929659 hits)
538  Class:   Tst & Branch           (44681442 hits)
539  Class:   AdvSimd ldstmult       (736 hits)
540  Class:   ldst excl              (9098783 hits)
541  Class:   Load Reg (lit)         (87189424 hits)
542  Class:   ldst noalloc pair      (3264433 hits)
543  Class:   ldst pair              (412526434 hits)
544  Class:   ldst reg (imm)         (314734576 hits)
545  Class: Loads & Stores           (2117774 hits)
546  Class: Data Proc Reg            (223519077 hits)
547  Class: Scalar FP                (31657954 hits)
548  Individual Instructions:
549  Instr: mrs x0, sp_el0           (2682661 hits)  (op=0xd5384100/  System Reg)
550  Instr: mrs x1, tpidr_el2        (1789339 hits)  (op=0xd53cd041/  System Reg)
551  Instr: mrs x2, tpidr_el2        (1513494 hits)  (op=0xd53cd042/  System Reg)
552  Instr: mrs x0, tpidr_el2        (1490823 hits)  (op=0xd53cd040/  System Reg)
553  Instr: mrs x1, sp_el0           (933793 hits)   (op=0xd5384101/  System Reg)
554  Instr: mrs x2, sp_el0           (699516 hits)   (op=0xd5384102/  System Reg)
555  Instr: mrs x4, tpidr_el2        (528437 hits)   (op=0xd53cd044/  System Reg)
556  Instr: mrs x30, ttbr1_el1       (480776 hits)   (op=0xd538203e/  System Reg)
557  Instr: msr ttbr1_el1, x30       (480713 hits)   (op=0xd518203e/  System Reg)
558  Instr: msr vbar_el1, x30        (480671 hits)   (op=0xd518c01e/  System Reg)
559  ...
560
561To find the argument shorthand for the class you need to examine the
562source code of the plugin at the moment, specifically the ``*opt``
563argument in the InsnClassExecCount tables.
564
565Lockstep Execution
566..................
567
568``contrib/plugins/lockstep.c``
569
570This is a debugging tool for developers who want to find out when and
571where execution diverges after a subtle change to TCG code generation.
572It is not an exact science and results are likely to be mixed once
573asynchronous events are introduced. While the use of -icount can
574introduce determinism to the execution flow it doesn't always follow
575the translation sequence will be exactly the same. Typically this is
576caused by a timer firing to service the GUI causing a block to end
577early. However in some cases it has proved to be useful in pointing
578people at roughly where execution diverges. The only argument you need
579for the plugin is a path for the socket the two instances will
580communicate over::
581
582
583  $ qemu-system-sparc -monitor none -parallel none \
584    -net none -M SS-20 -m 256 -kernel day11/zImage.elf \
585    -plugin ./contrib/plugins/liblockstep.so,sockpath=lockstep-sparc.sock \
586    -d plugin,nochain
587
588which will eventually report::
589
590  qemu-system-sparc: warning: nic lance.0 has no peer
591  @ 0x000000ffd06678 vs 0x000000ffd001e0 (2/1 since last)
592  @ 0x000000ffd07d9c vs 0x000000ffd06678 (3/1 since last)
593  Δ insn_count @ 0x000000ffd07d9c (809900609) vs 0x000000ffd06678 (809900612)
594    previously @ 0x000000ffd06678/10 (809900609 insns)
595    previously @ 0x000000ffd001e0/4 (809900599 insns)
596    previously @ 0x000000ffd080ac/2 (809900595 insns)
597    previously @ 0x000000ffd08098/5 (809900593 insns)
598    previously @ 0x000000ffd080c0/1 (809900588 insns)
599
600
601Hardware Profile
602................
603
604``contrib/plugins/hwprofile.c``
605
606The hwprofile tool can only be used with system emulation and allows
607the user to see what hardware is accessed how often. It has a number of options:
608
609.. list-table:: Hardware Profile arguments
610  :widths: 20 80
611  :header-rows: 1
612
613  * - Option
614    - Description
615  * - track=[read|write]
616    - By default the plugin tracks both reads and writes. You can use
617      this option to limit the tracking to just one class of accesses.
618  * - source
619    - Will include a detailed break down of what the guest PC that made the
620      access was. Not compatible with the pattern option. Example output::
621
622        cirrus-low-memory @ 0xfffffd00000a0000
623         pc:fffffc0000005cdc, 1, 256
624         pc:fffffc0000005ce8, 1, 256
625         pc:fffffc0000005cec, 1, 256
626
627  * - pattern
628    - Instead break down the accesses based on the offset into the HW
629      region. This can be useful for seeing the most used registers of
630      a device. Example output::
631
632        pci0-conf @ 0xfffffd01fe000000
633          off:00000004, 1, 1
634          off:00000010, 1, 3
635          off:00000014, 1, 3
636          off:00000018, 1, 2
637          off:0000001c, 1, 2
638          off:00000020, 1, 2
639          ...
640
641
642Execution Log
643.............
644
645``contrib/plugins/execlog.c``
646
647The execlog tool traces executed instructions with memory access. It can be used
648for debugging and security analysis purposes.
649Please be aware that this will generate a lot of output.
650
651The plugin needs default argument::
652
653  $ qemu-system-arm $(QEMU_ARGS) \
654    -plugin ./contrib/plugins/libexeclog.so -d plugin
655
656which will output an execution trace following this structure::
657
658  # vCPU, vAddr, opcode, disassembly[, load/store, memory addr, device]...
659  0, 0xa12, 0xf8012400, "movs r4, #0"
660  0, 0xa14, 0xf87f42b4, "cmp r4, r6"
661  0, 0xa16, 0xd206, "bhs #0xa26"
662  0, 0xa18, 0xfff94803, "ldr r0, [pc, #0xc]", load, 0x00010a28, RAM
663  0, 0xa1a, 0xf989f000, "bl #0xd30"
664  0, 0xd30, 0xfff9b510, "push {r4, lr}", store, 0x20003ee0, RAM, store, 0x20003ee4, RAM
665  0, 0xd32, 0xf9893014, "adds r0, #0x14"
666  0, 0xd34, 0xf9c8f000, "bl #0x10c8"
667  0, 0x10c8, 0xfff96c43, "ldr r3, [r0, #0x44]", load, 0x200000e4, RAM
668
669Please note that you need to configure QEMU with Capstone support to get disassembly.
670
671The output can be filtered to only track certain instructions or
672addresses using the ``ifilter`` or ``afilter`` options. You can stack the
673arguments if required::
674
675  $ qemu-system-arm $(QEMU_ARGS) \
676    -plugin ./contrib/plugins/libexeclog.so,ifilter=st1w,afilter=0x40001808 -d plugin
677
678This plugin can also dump registers when they change value. Specify the name of the
679registers with multiple ``reg`` options. You can also use glob style matching if you wish::
680
681  $ qemu-system-arm $(QEMU_ARGS) \
682    -plugin ./contrib/plugins/libexeclog.so,reg=\*_el2,reg=sp -d plugin
683
684Be aware that each additional register to check will slow down
685execution quite considerably. You can optimise the number of register
686checks done by using the rdisas option. This will only instrument
687instructions that mention the registers in question in disassembly.
688This is not foolproof as some instructions implicitly change
689instructions. You can use the ifilter to catch these cases::
690
691  $ qemu-system-arm $(QEMU_ARGS) \
692    -plugin ./contrib/plugins/libexeclog.so,ifilter=msr,ifilter=blr,reg=x30,reg=\*_el1,rdisas=on
693
694Cache Modelling
695...............
696
697``contrib/plugins/cache.c``
698
699Cache modelling plugin that measures the performance of a given L1 cache
700configuration, and optionally a unified L2 per-core cache when a given working
701set is run::
702
703  $ qemu-x86_64 -plugin ./contrib/plugins/libcache.so \
704      -d plugin -D cache.log ./tests/tcg/x86_64-linux-user/float_convs
705
706will report the following::
707
708    core #, data accesses, data misses, dmiss rate, insn accesses, insn misses, imiss rate
709    0       996695         508             0.0510%  2642799        18617           0.7044%
710
711    address, data misses, instruction
712    0x424f1e (_int_malloc), 109, movq %rax, 8(%rcx)
713    0x41f395 (_IO_default_xsputn), 49, movb %dl, (%rdi, %rax)
714    0x42584d (ptmalloc_init.part.0), 33, movaps %xmm0, (%rax)
715    0x454d48 (__tunables_init), 20, cmpb $0, (%r8)
716    ...
717
718    address, fetch misses, instruction
719    0x4160a0 (__vfprintf_internal), 744, movl $1, %ebx
720    0x41f0a0 (_IO_setb), 744, endbr64
721    0x415882 (__vfprintf_internal), 744, movq %r12, %rdi
722    0x4268a0 (__malloc), 696, andq $0xfffffffffffffff0, %rax
723    ...
724
725The plugin has a number of arguments, all of them are optional:
726
727.. list-table:: Cache modelling arguments
728  :widths: 20 80
729  :header-rows: 1
730
731  * - Option
732    - Description
733  * - limit=N
734    - Print top N icache and dcache thrashing instructions along with
735      their address, number of misses, and its disassembly. (default: 32)
736  * - icachesize=N
737      iblksize=B
738      iassoc=A
739    - Instruction cache configuration arguments. They specify the
740      cache size, block size, and associativity of the instruction
741      cache, respectively. (default: N = 16384, B = 64, A = 8)
742  * - dcachesize=N
743    - Data cache size (default: 16834)
744  * - dblksize=B
745    - Data cache block size (default: 64)
746  * - dassoc=A
747    - Data cache associativity (default: 8)
748  * - evict=POLICY
749    - Sets the eviction policy to POLICY. Available policies are:
750      ``lru``, ``fifo``, and ``rand``. The plugin will use
751      the specified policy for both instruction and data caches.
752      (default: POLICY = ``lru``)
753  * - cores=N
754    - Sets the number of cores for which we maintain separate icache
755      and dcache. (default: for linux-user, N = 1, for full system
756      emulation: N = cores available to guest)
757  * - l2=on
758    - Simulates a unified L2 cache (stores blocks for both
759      instructions and data) using the default L2 configuration (cache
760      size = 2MB, associativity = 16-way, block size = 64B).
761  * - l2cachesize=N
762    - L2 cache size (default: 2097152 (2MB)), implies ``l2=on``
763  * - l2blksize=B
764    - L2 cache block size (default: 64), implies ``l2=on``
765  * - l2assoc=A
766    - L2 cache associativity (default: 16), implies ``l2=on``
767
768Stop on Trigger
769...............
770
771``contrib/plugins/stoptrigger.c``
772
773The stoptrigger plugin allows to setup triggers to stop emulation.
774It can be used for research purposes to launch some code and precisely stop it
775and understand where its execution flow went.
776
777Two types of triggers can be configured: a count of instructions to stop at,
778or an address to stop at. Multiple triggers can be set at once.
779
780By default, QEMU will exit with return code 0. A custom return code can be
781configured for each trigger using ``:CODE`` syntax.
782
783For example, to stop at the 20-th instruction with return code 41, at address
7840xd4 with return code 0 or at address 0xd8 with return code 42::
785
786  $ qemu-system-aarch64 $(QEMU_ARGS) \
787    -plugin ./contrib/plugins/libstoptrigger.so,icount=20:41,addr=0xd4,addr=0xd8:42 -d plugin
788
789The plugin will log the reason of exit, for example::
790
791  0xd4 reached, exiting
792
793Limit instructions per second
794.............................
795
796This plugin can limit the number of Instructions Per Second that are executed::
797
798    # get number of instructions
799    $ num_insn=$(./build/qemu-x86_64 -plugin ./build/tests/plugin/libinsn.so -d plugin /bin/true |& grep total | sed -e 's/.*: //')
800    # limit speed to execute in 10 seconds
801    $ time ./build/qemu-x86_64 -plugin ./build/contrib/plugins/libips.so,ips=$(($num_insn/10)) /bin/true
802    real 10.000s
803
804
805.. list-table:: IPS arguments
806  :widths: 20 80
807  :header-rows: 1
808
809  * - Option
810    - Description
811  * - ips=N
812    - Maximum number of instructions per cpu that can be executed in one second.
813      The plugin will sleep when the given number of instructions is reached.
814
815Other emulation features
816------------------------
817
818When running system emulation you can also enable deterministic
819execution which allows for repeatable record/replay debugging. See
820:ref:`Record/Replay<replay>` for more details.
821